Former President Donald Trump sent a wake-up call to America when he stood up to China, called it out as a threat to the international community, and demanded better deals to protect American workers.
Before Trump’s get-tough strategy, China was taking advantage of us. Corporations shifted jobs to China, chasing cheap labor. They gutted America’s manufacturing sector. Towns that once thrived in Ohio and across the Midwest were hollowed out. The factories closed, the jobs left, families were uprooted, and communities were devastated.
I work with businesses in Ohio and throughout the country. I know the threat China poses to our economy because I have sat across the negotiating table from dozens of so-called “businessmen” from China who are corrupt, stealing our technology and trading secrets while answering to the Chinese Communist Party.
Frankly, I’ve seen the mess that the politicians in Washington have made with bad trade deals. The politicians look the other way as China undermines our economy, commits atrocities at home, and bullies the world. For the past decade, I’ve been telling any business that will listen to get out of China.
China is ruled by the totalitarian President Xi Jinping, who rose to power in 2012 and crushed any chance of Chinese capitalism. Under Xi, the government and the military began taking control of Chinese companies. Today, the Chinese Communist Party’s grip on the economy is, once again, nearly absolute.
It’s not just the economy. The Chinese Communist Party controls every aspect of life in China. There is no freedom of speech or religion. The CCP spies on its citizens and uses a “social credit” system to mandate obedience to the party line. And while, at one point, there was hope that China would adopt some of the freedoms of the West, the reverse happened: The West has become complicit in China’s repression.
Western companies now submit to Xi’s censorship regime. Hollywood won’t make movies critical of China. Sports leagues censor players, executives, and fans. LeBron James, who is heralded as a woke social justice warrior in the United States, cowers before Chinese censors and makes excuses for Chinese human rights abuses.
There’s more: In 2013, Xi launched the Belt-and-Road initiative, which operates like an organized crime syndicate, locking desperate nations into no-win deals for construction projects with lending terms that would make a loan shark blush. When the inevitable default occurs, China moves in, demanding control over key infrastructure. Some of that infrastructure is already being used as de facto bases for the Chinese military.
The Chinese Communist Party engages in widespread corporate espionage, stealing American technology and trade secrets in order to produce counterfeit products to undermine the market.
Free trade with China doesn’t exist. China signs trade deals only to use currency manipulation and illegal subsidies to cheat. The U.S. has learned the hard way that a trade deal with the Chinese Communist Party isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
In the past two years, China’s duplicity has cost lives. The Chinese lied about COVID-19 and denied Western medical access to Wuhan. Millions died around the world because of China’s cover-up. To make matters worse, China shipped faulty medical equipment to countries desperate for supplies.
Finally, China is building illegal military bases in the South China Sea and is threatening to invade Taiwan. Domestically, the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the Buddhists in Tibet face concentration camps, forced sterilization, and extermination.
When Trump came into office, he was mocked for standing up to China. But he was right. He gave those of us in the business community who were concerned about China a voice, and it’s one of the reasons why I proudly served as the Ohio finance co-chair for his 2016 campaign.
China is a dangerous and formidable adversary. We need to stand strong.
Mike Gibbons is a businessman from Cleveland and is running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio.
